Rangel on the brink

Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel is still clinging to his gavel, but it is no longer a question of if – but when, how and to whom – he will give it up, according to Democratic insiders.

With his ethics problems becoming an albatross around the necks of his party’s most politically vulnerable members, the venerable New York Democrat was pushed deep into a corner Tuesday night – meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a covey of aides in her ceremonial office in the southeast corner of the Capitol.

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He insisted he that he is still chairman of the powerful tax-writing committee but couldn’t guarantee that would still be the case by the end of today.

“I can’t make all those promises at my age,” he said as he left the meeting with Pelosi late Tuesday.

Republicans are ready to a force a floor vote on whether he should be stripped of his chairmanship, and that’s a lose-lose proposition for Rangel. For him to win that kind of vote, some Democrats in tough swing districts – including those in his home state of New York – would have to put themselves in further electoral jeopardy by backing him up.

Last week’s ethics committee judgment that Rangel violated House gift rules by accepting travel to the Caribbean appeared to be the last straw for many of his rank-and-file colleagues. Even as House Democratic leaders said over the weekend that they would await the outcome of the committee’s work on several other allegations against Rangel, so-called Frontline Democrats – those the party has identified as most vulnerable to defeat in November – began making their decisions to dump Rangel.

If all House members vote and all 178 Republicans favor removing Rangel, the GOP would need 39 Democrats to help oust him.

The public list of Democratic defectors was still less than half that Tuesday night, but Democratic lawmakers and aides said the ranks were swelling quickly behind closed doors.

The group that has publicly abandoned Rangel includes not just members who are in danger of losing their seats but also at least three – Artur Davis who is running for governor of Alabama and Reps. Brad Ellsworth and Paul Hodes, who are seeking Senate seats in Indiana and New Hampshire, respectively.

Those camps could easily be joined by “good government” liberals who are uncomfortable not only with the first judgment against Rangel but also the scope and nature of the allegations against him: that he failed to pay taxes on a Dominican rental property, that he improperly solicited funds for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York, that he broke New York City rules by maintaining multiple rent-regulated apartments and that he omitted hundreds of thousands of dollars of income and assets from financial disclosure forms that lawmakers are required to file with the House.

As the defections mounted, press aides were quick to send out releases to reporters working on the story – or at least make sure their bosses were included on lists of those who would not support Rangel in a floor vote.